Map Room
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: Illya imagines what it might be like to be with Napoleon. Napoleon is more perceptive than he realised. Rated 18. Slash.


Illya and Napoleon. Their office, U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. They're both working at their desks, both diligent, focused. At least, Napoleon is focussed. Illya is sitting with his reading glasses on, hands on the typewriter keys, but he's not focussed on the work. For the fourth day in a row, god help him, he's thinking about Napoleon. He's wondering, first, what Napoleon would look like in reading glasses. Of course Napoleon doesn't wear reading glasses, or any other kind except sun. Even if he needed them, Illya thinks he would do without. He would squint while no one was looking, and relax his eyes quickly when their gaze turned on him.

He idly lets his eyes linger on Napoleon, and thinks about the shape of his muscles, the firmness of his muscles, under the clothes. He's seen those often enough. Napoleon isn't overtly muscled, not like one of those men one sees striding across a sandy beach, more proud of their muscles than anything in the world. He's just strong. Strong enough to be formidable in a fight.

He thinks about his bones, strong and pure white, like chalk. He's seen his bones; one of them, anyway. A bad break of the lower leg. It wasn't white, of course. It was mostly red. It was not beautiful but nauseating as he empathised with Napoleon's pain and feared for his healing, more nauseating than it would be were it his own. He's not thinking about his bones like that, but as an elemental thing, something vitally important that keeps Napoleon standing tall, striding, moving, being strong.

He thinks about the smell of him. He knows the smell of him. Sometimes they get very close, in their work. Sometimes his arms are around Napoleon's chest. Sometimes they hold onto one another for dear life. Sometimes they sleep in the same bed. But this is different. He thinks, abstractedly, distantly, of the smell of Napoleon.

His shirts smell of starch. He must get them laundered. He's sure Napoleon doesn't take his shirts in a dirty heap down to the laundromat and sit watching them slopping in the drum, before taking them home and laying them out on a small ironing board, and smoothing out the creases. He must have them laundered, and they smell of starch. Then there's the aftershave. He knows that smell very well too. He has a few different types, but Illya doesn't know their names, just their distinct smells. There's the smell of sweat. Even Napoleon smells of sweat sometimes, under the delicate layers of starch and aftershave and fabric, of alcohol and cigarette smoke and food. He imagines leaning in, his nose close to Napoleon's neck, and scenting the real scent of him, that musky scent. He imagines the little catch of stubble against his own skin. He imagines touching it with his lips, tasting. He would taste salty. He would be warm. His flesh would be like risen dough.

'You must be in love.'

He starts. Napoleon is standing at the side of his desk, looking down at him, hands thrust into his pockets, hips a little forward. He hadn't been looking at Napoleon any more, hadn't even seen him move. He had been lost in a dream world.

'In – '

He falters, willing his cheeks not to colour. He pushes his glasses back up his nose, then takes them off, and shrugs.

'In love?' he asks, cultivating nonchalance. 'Only if I'm in love with paperwork. I'm tired. Your mind starts going stiff after a while.'

'That's why I suggested lunch, _mon ami_,' Napoleon says.

He hadn't heard Napoleon suggesting lunch. He looks up at the clock, letting his eyes adjust after taking off the glasses. It's past twelve.

'Commissary?' Illya asks.

'Commissary,' Napoleon replies firmly with a nod.

((O))

In the commissary, they take a booth seat in the corner. This place was furnished to look like any New York diner, and it does well. Napoleon chooses the seat. Illya goes to the counter and gets coffee and food. He knows what Napoleon likes well enough. So, he gets coffee and food and brings the tray to the table and shares out plates and mugs. He slips into the opposite side of the booth to Napoleon, settles himself on the vinyl seat, and digs in. He is hungry. He's very hungry. He hadn't had time for breakfast, or time to grab a snack on the way in. It's been a slow morning, but he hasn't felt like moving from his desk, either. Sometimes life is like that. Lethargy vying with bodily needs.

'Hamburger,' Napoleon comments, before picking up the item in both hands and taking a bite.

'Bourgeois as your country is, your cafeterias still don't have a dizzying array of foods,' Illya says. He feels an odd little spike inside, a kind of annoyance, as if he's given Napoleon something on open palms, and been rejected.

'No, it's good,' Napoleon assures him. 'Just what I would have chosen. And the right amount of ketchup and mustard.'

There's a twinkle in his eye as he looks up at Illya, and all is forgiven, instantly. He doesn't know why he's feeling so prickly. Why should he be so prickly towards Napoleon, whom he adores? His stomach makes a little flip, then settles again.

He looks determinedly at his own plate, at the pastrami on rye that he set back down when Napoleon had seemed to criticise the hamburger. It's not quite like a taste of home, not at all, but sometimes these flavours make him feel a little closer to home, somewhere in Europe rather than all the way over the great ocean. He would like a steaming bowl of borsch. He would like sour cream. Perogies. He must go to Veselka for dinner in the near future. It's time.

He recalls, for a moment, the pictures and posters he used to see as he was growing up. Pictures of fine Russian men, smart and clean shaven, muscular and optimistic. Pictures of American businessmen, fat, full jowled, oozing the oppression of capitalism from their pores. Pictures and posters, he thinks of them as. Napoleon would call them propaganda, and no doubt they are; although America has its own forms of propaganda, which aren't recognised as such by its people. It's always easier to see something from further away, and always easy to be hoodwinked by the propaganda close to you. There are plenty of images here that would depict him as a sly, untrustworthy toady of a dictatorial regime.

'Penny for them,' Napoleon says.

Illya looks up, startled. Half of Napoleon's lunch is gone. Illya's sandwich, two taken, is still on the plate.

'I don't sell myself that cheaply,' he says, and starts to eat again.

The food is good. He was very hungry. He eats solidly, enough that he's almost finished by the time Napoleon's plate is clean. He picks up his black coffee and takes a deep mouthful, and watches Napoleon as he drinks his white. He sees the angle of his wrist as he lifts the mug to his mouth, the flesh revealed by the stiff white cuff of his shirt, the cuff-link glinting under the commissary lights. That bump of his wrist bone stands clear. Illya finds that curiously affecting. He finds Napoleon's wrist bones beautiful and vulnerable. He would like to kiss them.

Napoleon's hands are perfectly manicured, each nail a smooth curve. When Napoleon writes with a fountain pen, he likes to watch him write. It is a peculiarly elegant sight, seeing him make those loops and curls. He watches Napoleon's hands often when they're together. Napoleon does amazing things with his hands, and Illya isn't sure he even knows he's doing it. When someone is holding a gun to their heads or backs, and Napoleon raises his hands, he holds them above his head like a dancer, poised. When he jumps from a ledge to the ground, he makes a little flourish with those hands. It is a dancer, Illya decides, that Napoleon is most like, at least in how he presents his hands. He wonders what it would be like to dance with Napoleon. It would be like floating, he thinks.

' – or the old man will have our hides,' Napoleon is saying.

His cup is empty, and so is Napoleon's. Napoleon is tidying the plates onto the tray, wiping a few crumbs from the table top with his paper napkin into his hand, shaking them onto the tray. Illya dabs at his mouth with his own napkin, crumples it, and tosses it onto the tray. He flicks a look at his watch. They've only been here half an hour. Waverly wouldn't have their hides for that. They're supposed to take an hour for lunch.

'Come on,' Napoleon says.

He tugs his fingers lightly at Illya's jacket sleeve. It's a peculiarly childish move, like a boy in a playground getting his friend's attention, drawing him to something secret from everyone else.

'Those reports aren't that urgent,' Illya points out, but Napoleon says, 'I know. I have something to show you in the map room.'

The map room. His stomach does one of those little flips again. He knows what Napoleon does in the map room, usually with girls from Translation or Transcription, occasionally with girls from Security, although he's a little more hands-off with women with full weapons training. The map room has a lock on the door and a pull down screen so it can also be used for slide shows. Sometimes the slide shows are of things not suitable for just anyone to see. The lock is there to prevent offence or a leak in security.

They take the elevator one floor up, and walk the corridor. The map room is empty. It usually is. So, Napoleon opens the door, closes it behind Illya, slips the lock closed. Illya isn't aware of any slides that need their attention. It's all paperwork for past missions at the moment, a desperate attempt to catch up before something new unfolds.

Inside, Napoleon takes a coin from his pocket, and flips it, artfully, with his thumb. It revolves in the air, catching the light that's supposed to be directed onto spread-out maps, and falls into his open palm. He offers the coin to Illya.

'If you're more expensive than a penny, will a quarter do?' he asks. 'I don't have any silver dollars, I'm afraid. Nothing I can flip bigger than a quarter.'

'I take cheques,' Illya says nonchalantly, but he feels uncertain. Has Napoleon locked him in this room just to find out what he's thinking about? What can he fabricate? Can he fabricate anything? Can he just fob Napoleon off with the usual worries of their job?

'Illya, look at me,' Napoleon says.

Illya demurs, and Napoleon tuts.

'No, just look at me,' he says. 'I'm not asking for a psychiatric session. I'm asking you to look at me. Just meet my eyes for five seconds, yes?'

'Don't be ridiculous, Napoleon,' Illya says.

'Afraid?' Napoleon asks.

That lights something, but it's still hard. Illya looks at his hands. He looks at the locked door. He looks at the flip-rack of maps on the wall, the shallow drawers which contain maps laid out flat, the shelves that contain them in tight rolls. It's like gearing up for an acrobatic trick. Then he lifts his eyes and looks at Napoleon.

Napoleon's eyes are brown, of course, but not just brown. There are little flecks of colour, little autumn flames in his irides. His pupils are dark wells, and Illya can see himself in them, looking into Napoleon's eyes. It's uncomfortable, and he has to look away.

'I thought so,' Napoleon says after a moment.

What did he think? What can five seconds of eye contact tell him?

'I'm going to do something that I hope you can forgive me for,' Napoleon says.

Suddenly there's a little undercurrent of nervousness in his voice, something only Illya would be able to catch. Napoleon, on the back foot, unsure of himself. Illya feels his own nervousness. He feels as if he's on a hot surface, unable to put each foot down for long before he has to pick it up and hop to the other foot. He is at sea.

Napoleon puts his hands on Illya's shoulders, lightly, but as if he has no intention of letting go. He nudges him backwards a little, and Illya moves with the thrust of Napoleon's hands, so he's pressed against the wall behind him. His shoulder blades are against the cool of the wall, and the solidity is reassuring. He has all the instincts of self defence at his disposal, but he doesn't let them flare up. He trusts Napoleon.

Napoleon touches his fingertips to the underneath of Illya's chin, tilting his head up just a little. Illya feels as though he were caught in a great wind. Napoleon is so close. He doesn't know how to move. He can't hear, nothing at all.

Napoleon comes closer, closer. He leans in tilts his head. His lips touch Illya's and, without conscious thought, Illya's lips part. The kiss is long and slow, and all those scents flood around him. The starch, the aftershave, the musk of sweat, the fabric scent of Napoleon's suit. His hair. He can smell his hair. The scent of Napoleon's breath. The taste of him. Coffee. He can taste the coffee that Napoleon has just drunk, the milky coffee that passed hotly into Napoleon's body.

He feels as if his knees are losing strength, but it doesn't matter, because the wall is behind him, and Napoleon's hand is in the small of his back, one hand there, the other on the back of his head, firm against his hair. Napoleon's hands are broad and strong and will never let him fall.

The kiss lasts forever. There is no time. There is nothing at all but the kiss.

Then there is space between them again. Space. Air. The cool of air.

Illya doesn't know what to think. He hardly knows what to say. It takes a while to think of English. In the end he says, 'That was a hell of a risk, Napoleon.'

There's a little smile on Napoleon's face, just at the corners of his mouth.

'I didn't hear you telling me no, Mr Kuryakin,' he says smoothly. 'I didn't hear you asking me to stop.'

'I'm – curious about your risk assessment process,' Illya says.

He's trying very hard to sound calm. He feels anything but calm. He wants to touch his fingers to his lips, to wipe away wetness, but he doesn't want to seem to be wiping away the feeling of Napoleon, kissing him. He wants to keep that forever.

That smile becomes a bit fuller on Napoleon's lips.

'I don't know exactly how you'll take it,' he says.

'Try me,' Illya replies.

'Well,' Napoleon says slowly. 'I have been around enough women with the hots for me to know the signs. It isn't that different with men.'

'You have the most inflated head of anyone I have ever met,' Illya says dryly.

All he wants to do is fall against Napoleon's lips again. He doesn't want to be dry, tart, dismissive. He wants to lose himself in the heat of Napoleon's lips.

Napoleon lifts a hand and softly smoothes the hair at Illya's temple.

'Was I wrong?' he asks. 'Because I thought if I were wrong, you would have decked me by now, and our partnership would be well on the way to being over.'

'No,' Illya admits.

Can this be true? Have his fantasies suddenly become flesh, to live out their lives in reality? For his flesh to touch Napoleon's flesh, for his desires to become possible?

'No, you weren't wrong,' Illya says.

He's full of uncertainty. This is the perfect thing, surely? But it's not like kissing a girl. There are so many things to think about. So many complications. This is Napoleon, a man, his partner. Most of all, a man.

'I didn't know you swung both ways,' he says.

Napoleon smiles that dazzling smile. 'My dear, I swing every way. You must have known that by now.'

No, Illya didn't know. He thought Napoleon swung without diversion towards girls, like the needle of a compass desperately yearning towards the north. But when he thinks about it… Maybe he's never let himself really think about it. He hasn't let himself hope. He's induced his own kind of blindness.

'We have half an hour before we need to be back in the office,' Napoleon says softly.

That voice. It must be a voice like that with which the serpent spoke in the Garden of Eden. If the Garden of Eden ever existed. If serpents ever spoke.

'We don't have any missions planned,' Illya says, deliberately obtuse. 'No maps to look at.'

'No,' Napoleon says.

He reaches his hand forward, and tucks one finger very lightly just under the edge of Illya's belt. Such a small touch. Such a startling feeling.

'Napoleon,' Illya says.

His own voice sounds very dark and low, and just a little tremulous. How many women has Napoleon had in this room?

Napoleon's fingers are so nimble on his belt, so nimble on his fly. There are little electric shocks pulsing everywhere in his body, exploding like tiny sparks in all his nerve endings. There's something happening in his brain, something animal, shutting down thoughts of common sense and decency, and lighting up the primitive parts that say _food, sex, warmth_. All those primitive parts are suddenly so alive. _S__ex_, they are saying. Not _food, sex, warmth, _but just _sex, sex, sex. _He could be starving on an ice floe, and the drum beat in his mind would be the same.

Napoleon's hands are softly drawing his trousers down, just a little. Softly drawing down his underpants. Napoleon makes a little noise as Illya's softness is revealed. He cups his hands on the globes of Illya's behind. Illya feels his breath, the warmth of his breath, right over his cock. He makes his own noise, a small sound of need.

Napoleon's mouth is on him, hungry and urgent. His tongue, dextrous and hot. God. God. He doesn't know what to do. All the bright lights in the room have gone away. Everything has focussed down to this small place, to his cock, soft and small in Napoleon's mouth, surrounded by the heat and wet of Napoleon's mouth. Blood is pulsing, blood in his temples and ears, and blood down below, making him stiff and hard. Napoleon's tongue is doing all sorts to him, things he had never imagined. Napoleon's hands, those beautiful hands, are touching his balls, stroking them, raking them gently with his nails, lifting them, brushing them.

He lets his head fall back against the wall, lets his behind rest against the wall. He is hard in Napoleon's mouth, moving into him, over and over. Napoleon's deft fingers are somewhere behind his balls down, somewhere in the space beneath where it's as if the root of his cock lies, swollen and hard and so needful. His fingers pressure and touch something there, and any last vestige of control is gone. It's as if Napoleon has touched a control at the centre of him, a button that opened the last gateway. He is dizzy, his head swimming with it, the animal voice in his head making him thrust, thrust, thrust. He is holding Napoleon's head, fingers curled in Napoleon's hair. He is burying himself in the cavern of his throat, and then –

Did he cry out? He must have cried out. It's as if a firework exploded, and his eyes are dazzled, his ears singing, his whole body singing as if an angel had passed through on the way to another place. His fingers are tangled hard in Napoleon's hair, Napoleon's forehead is against his abdomen, against the loose white cotton of his untucked shirt. His mouth is still against Illya's groin, hard against it, Illya's cock softening inside.

His knees are nerveless, his spine nerveless. It's only the wall holding him up.

He doesn't know how to speak. He says something in his native language, he thinks. A sound of his native language, at least. He's a long way from words, and even further from English ones.

He is slipping from the heat of Napoleon's mouth. Napoleon stands up, smiling. He touches a hand to Illya's face, to his cheek, ever so softly. Then he takes a comb from his pocket and starts to comb the hair that Illya put into such disarray.

Illya fumbles with shaking hands to rearrange his clothes, pulling up underwear and trousers, tucking in the shirt, fastening the belt. A few minutes, and they might both look presentable, if someone knocked on the door.

'I didn't – You – ' Illya says.

Somehow, Napoleon understand what he's saying.

'The pleasure was almost entirely mine,' he says, then he corrects himself, 'At least, don't believe I didn't enjoy that just because I didn't get to come.'

'Dinner,' Illya says incoherently. 'Veselka. Tonight. Then – '

It seems inevitable. If he were a girl, he would be afraid this was a one time thing, just a fling in the map room. But it isn't. He knows it isn't. They will have dinner tonight, and then they will go home; to his place, or Napoleon's. It doesn't matter which. And something will unfold. Something very beautiful will begin.


End file.
